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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310100">Air Resistance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/overprimrose/pseuds/overprimrose'>overprimrose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NU'EST</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action, Alternate Universe - Wings, Found Family, Gen, Mentions of PTSD, and by that i mean a maximum ride ripoff, but y'know, mentions of past trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:33:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,565</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/overprimrose/pseuds/overprimrose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonghyun isn't convinced that Mingi is an angel.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Choi Minki | Ren/Kim Jonghyun | JR</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Air Resistance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i meant it when i said i cant touch a winged au without it becoming a maximum ride ripoff</p><p>warnings for vague mentions of past trauma and mentions of ptsd symptoms, particularly nightmares</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They thought Mingi was an angel. Or, Jonghyun corrected, Dongho thought that. Jonghyun’s opinion was still out. They’d never seen wings like Mingi’s before, but that didn’t make him an angel.</p><p>His ability to hide his wings so completely—not tucked under an oversized gray hoodie like Jonghyun’s or at constant risk of being seen like Dongho and Minhyun’s—could be a lifesaver. If Jonghyun didn’t have such a bad feeling about it. If Jonghyun hadn’t been burned one too many times to trust that Mingi truly came out of nowhere and had no bad intentions.</p><p>“You should have let me go alone,” Mingi said. Jonghyun had caught a feather the wrong way when he’d tucked his tiny, useless wings under his hoodie, and it pinched with each step. He didn't dare adjust it while inside the small drugstore.</p><p>“You haven’t been here long enough," he said.</p><p>“It’s been a month.”</p><p>“I’m not trusting everyone’s safety on you. This is too important.”</p><p>“Heatwave of the century and Kim Jonghyun thinks it’s safer to walk around with his wings under a hoodie—”</p><p>“Don’t say that here,” Jonghyun muttered. His reasoning for only allowing Mingi to accompany him on this desperate last-minute run before they abandoned this place forever stemmed from something simple: he didn’t trust Mingi. Because Mingi didn't have to be here.</p><p><em>He looks like an angel</em>, Dongho had said the night Aron had brought Mingi to them, and it had stuck. Angel Mingi. Snow white wings Mingi.</p><p>Mingi with the big, expressive eyes and the flawless skin and the wings that vanished into thin air and back again. Better than the rest of them. He could do anything he wanted; he could live as though he didn’t have wings at all.</p><p>The first time Mingi had showed them—all casual about it, too—Jonghyun had floated forward as though in a dream, only coming to when Aron questioned why he was touching Mingi’s bare, unbroken shoulder blades. Not a feather in sight. <em>Why would he ever bring his wings out at all?</em> Jonghyun had wondered.</p><p>Jonghyun liked things he could touch, and feel. The cold metal of the store’s shelves under his fingertips. The sweat dripping down his spine. The pull of his pinched feather and the usual cramping as his wings grew tired of being smushed under clothing. They all worked together, to keep him grounded. Whenever he woke from a nightmare, he would lie on the floor and run his fingers over the wooden boards, again and again and again. Until it stopped feeling like cold epoxy. Until he remembered that he was home.</p><p>Mingi liked living in the clouds. Jonghyun didn’t trust anyone who didn’t force their feet to stay firmly on the ground.</p><p>“This is it, right?” Mingi asked. Jonghyun realized he’d been blankly staring at the shelves of medication before him, right as Mingi tipped the red box of allergy pills into his hand. Yes, those were what Minhyun needed. It kind of seemed like a joke, that this final, risky run was for allergy pills, but it was summertime, and if Minhyun didn’t take the meds, his eyes watered so badly he couldn’t see, and he sneezed, and when he sneezed, his wings twitched. Play human all you want, but when your extra appendages showed themselves, you stopped fooling anyone.</p><p>So yeah. Allergy medication.</p><p>“Let’s get out of here,” Jonghyun said. He cast a look around. They’d stayed in this town longer than most. He wondered if it would live in his dreams too, or if only the bad places got to stay.</p><p>“It's okay if you need a minute." </p><p>“The others are waiting.” They’d gone through their classic arguments already: Jonghyun told them to fly off without him and that he’d catch up, and they had refused. His useless wings would once again prevent them from using the only advantage wings could ever give them. Sometimes, Jonghyun thought that the best thing he could do for them would be to disappear. That it would be easier for all of them. He could finally rest, and not worry. They could finally fly.</p><p>The streets outside were awash with dim yellow streetlights and the bright glare of occasional headlights. The dry air stung Jonghyun’s nose. He set the pace at something faster than leisurely but too slow to look like running, and smoothed his hoodie down as best he could. His wings were small enough to stay hidden, but it wasn’t perfect.</p><p>“Stop pulling at your clothes, you look suspicious,” Mingi said.</p><p>“You know, we made it by just fine before you came along.”</p><p>“I’m not the one messing things up now. You kept Aron cooped up for a month all because he brought me in.”</p><p>“Aron’s the reason we’ve got to leave here. He went <em>flying</em>. Someone <em>saw</em> him.”</p><p>“After a month of you—”</p><p>Jonghyun stopped short, his arm flaring out to stop Mingi too. A large white van that had previously been still in the parking lot had thrown its back doors open. Three men stared at Jonghyun and Mingi from inside. Jonghyun didn’t wait for them to move. Grabbing Mingi by the sleeve, he tore off. He knew these streets better than anyone, and he was faster on his feet, too. They’d only ever caught him once.</p><p>Mingi kept up well as they beelined down the quickest route Jonghyun knew. It would lead them to safety, and their pursuers away from the others. They raced past cracked brick walls and by dumpsters that turned the air acrid.</p><p>A hard left, and Jonghyun's free hand scraped against brick to stop him from banging against the wall. He burst into a side street and had to throw up his arms. A van was parked there, blocking his way. Jonghyun slammed against the hot black metal. His breaths burst from his lungs.</p><p>“Jonghyun!” Mingi's voice nearly drowned out the driver's "it's him!" They’d predicted which route Jonghyun would take. That wasn’t a good sign. Jonghyun didn't wait to see what they planned to do next. </p><p>He led Mingi back the way they’d come. Footsteps echoed behind them. This way was more dangerous, and the men behind them were close. Mingi had slowed now, and Jonghyun dragged him along as best he could. Two men were still behind them, one from the first van, one from the second. At least three others were unaccounted for. They could be anywhere.</p><p>These alleys were thin, and there were more dead ends. They were trying to herd Jonghyun down one, like a rat trapped in the middle of a maze. Knowing their plan didn’t prevent him from falling into it.</p><p>A man reared out of the right side of a forked alley. Jonghyun barely avoided his hands, and clocked his shoulder against a concrete corner in the process. He skidded down the other path, a mistake he couldn’t take back. Fifty meters ahead of him was a sheer concrete wall.</p><p>Jonghyun was a runner, and he could not run. They had him. The footsteps of their pursuers echoed off the walls. They had slowed down, because they all knew that this was going to end with Jonghyun in the back of one of those vans. <em>Again</em>.</p><p>“What do we do?” Mingi demanded. He was wheezing. Jonghyun was too, but a sense of peace settled over him as he looked to the mouth of the alley. He could not run any further.</p><p>“Get out of here,” Jonghyun told Mingi. No matter how much duress Jonghyun was under, his wings would not become any better at flying. Jonghyun could not escape this concrete corner. He knew it. The men chasing him knew it. What they didn't know about was Mingi, who looked like he did not have wings at all. “Find the others and get them out too. I’ll hold them off.”</p><p>“So that's it. You're so fucking selfish."</p><p>
  <em>“What?” </em>
</p><p>“You’d rather let bad things happen to you than accept that sometimes when things change, it’s for the better.”</p><p>The men were approaching now. If Mingi didn’t leave, they’d both end up caught, and that wasn’t something Jonghyun would allow. “Mingi, get the fuck out of here.”</p><p>“You have no idea what I can do. You made your mind up about me the moment we met.” For the first time ever, Mingi looked dangerous, and it wasn’t toward the people who wanted to kill them.</p><p>“You can't make me able to fly,” Jonghyun snapped. “Say whatever you want about me, you can get out of this and I can’t.” He’d seen Mingi fly before. He could handle the harsh upward rise that this required.</p><p>“You should think about why you don’t want to get out of this,” Mingi said. “And then get over it, because they’d fall apart if they lost you again. Hell, from how often they tell me you weren't always like this, I'm not sure they ever got you back." And before Jonghyun could even bristle, because how dare Mingi think he knew the first thing about him or what had happened to him, Mingi pulled Jonghyun in close. For a surreal second, Jonghyun thought Mingi was hugging him, but then his wings flared out. Snow white, and so big they spanned the alleyway. The wings of an angel.</p><p>Before Jonghyun could prepare to leave the ground, he was in the air.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i figured i'd try my hand at a short story lol thanks for any kudos, comments, and/or constructive criticism!</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/turtledovejr">twitter</a> | <a href="https://curiouscat.me/overprimrose">curiouscat</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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